The Mystery of the Lost Colong

REAL KIDS • REAL PLACES AMERICA’S NATIONAL MYSTERY BOOK SERIES

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One Wobbly Ship!

One New Baby!

One String of Islands!

A bunch of Missing Coins!

And a lot of Lost Colonists!

C A R O L E

M A R S H

1 MIDNIGHT, ROANOKE ISLAND Jeremy lay curled like a cold clam beneath Grandma Mary’s quilt. Never in his twelve years of perfectly normal life on Roanoke Island had he ever felt such fear and misery.

A loose board banged the tin roof of the old house like a warning. He shivered. Why did he ever beg to have this small cold room off the attic?

He didn’t mind ghosts. But real spooks snooping and stealing only a few feet away from him—now, that was scary.

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They’d only discovered the disappearance a few hours ago. Someone from the 400th Anniversary Committee had come by to see if Grandma Mary had any old pictures of Manteo. Even over a year ahead, everyone in North Carolina was preparing to celebrate America’s first English colony that had vanished—men, women, and children—without a trace.

The groaning attic was filled with crackly, yellowed photographs of everything from the Mighty Midgetts of Chicamacomico who’d saved many a shipwrecked sailor’s life to the horse-drawn buggies that used to cart people over the giant sand dunes at Jockey’s Ridge to their seaside cottage retreats. Grandma had hoisted her skirts, marched proudly up the attic stairs—then screamed.

The small leather deerskin trunk was empty. She wanted to show them one of Grandpa’s 100 commemorative coins struck in 1937—350 years after the birth of Virginia Dare—the first English child born in the New World. When Grandpa had shown the coins to Jeremy and promised they’d be his on his eighteenth birthday, the cache had glistened like pirate booty.

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Jeremy looked out at the silver coin moon. As clouds curled over the orb, he pictured the trunk empty of all the silver halfdollars Grandpa Joe had bought in 1937 that were now worth more than $500 each.

He didn’t know if he felt worse that an heirloom had been snatched from his family or that it had been swiped from a room just the other side of his head—and he never heard a thing.

The loose board banged again. Short blond hairs stood at attention on his arms.

Jeremy dug deep into the covers. He had to sleep, for tomorrow was going to be the second most miserable day in his, until now, ordinary, wintergreen Life Saver life.

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2 MORNING, ROANOKE ISLAND Jeremy’s best friend, Dennis, had come over on the early ferry from Ocracoke Island and was shocked at the news of the theft.

With the golden brilliance of the tiger eye rings which washed ashore occasionally, his eyes flew to each adult in search of the makeeverything-right answers expected of them, but they were busy choreographing breakfast around the big kitchen table, making sure the dumbstruck visitor got one of everything.

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“For 400 years we’ve had mostly peace and quiet on the Outer Banks,” crooned Grandma Mary, sadly.

“You call blood-thirsty pirating, Indian attacks, Civil War battles, and ships crashing on sandbars peace and quiet?” asked Dad. Grandma Mary retreated behind her coffee cup. Jeremy tried to change the subject. “That dumb speech I have to write is about the Indians,” he grumbled.

“You mean savages,” his father hissed.

Jeremy groaned. “The white men were the savages. They ran the Indians off their land, brought diseases they had no immunity to, falsely accused them of stealing, and killed their king, Wingina. I’d retaliate too!”

“Does your speech have a title yet?” asked Mother quickly.

“Those-Whose-Names-Were-Terrible,” Jeremy intoned dramatically. “I announced it yesterday in class. Frankly, my title is longer than my speech right now.”

“We can never make it up to native Americans,” Grandma said.

“Why not?” asked Dennis between bites.

“That’s a good question,” said Jeremy. “I hope that’s what my speech will be about, if I finish.”

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Jeremy’s father gave him an amused look.

“Oh, I think Ms. Phillips will see that you’re ready to give it by the 400th celebration.”

“Speaking of savages,” Dennis muttered under his breath.

“The coins vanished,” Grandma said wearily. “Just like the Lost Colony.”

“I sure hope not,” Jeremy said. “They never found it.”

Silently, everyone went on eating.

Grandpa Joe’s empty chair creaked as audibly as if someone had just settled into it.

“Let’s go, Den,” Jeremy said suddenly and reached for his jacket.

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3 MORNING, MANTEO Jeremy and Dennis stared up at the bigbellied hull of the Elizabeth II. The 400th Committee was building a replica of the ship the colonists sailed to the New World.

Jeremy’s daily rounds included The Christmas Shop, Good Luck Street, and The House by the Side of the Road, but he always wound up on Manteo’s waterfront so he could survey the noisy progress in the boathouse.

Astride their rickety, salt-air-rusted bikes, the boys eased up to the ragged sand fence encircling the construction area. Jeremy inhaled deeply. The smell of the fresh cut

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juniper and pine was warm and sweet.

Hunched shipwrights labored as the clang of the blacksmith jarred their tasks. Jeremy scooped up a handful of wood shavings and stuffed them into his pocket.

“Why did you do that?” Dennis asked.

“For a memento or souvenir—a real one, not like a bumper sticker or tee shirt,” Jeremy said.

“That’s a great idea,” said Dennis, grabbing a handful of the soft blond curls for himself. “I bet I can sell them for a buck apiece.”

Jeremy started to complain that noncommercialism was what he meant, but just then, the captain stormed out of the boathouse. “Well, I just don’t know . . .” he said to the young carpenter trailing him. “I sure didn’t order the hold sealed yet. No one has permission to touch this ship without my ok.” He looked like he’d rip the belly of the ship back open in a heartbeat.

The carpenter slapped his hands helplessly against his tool apron. “I guess they did it yesterday when we all were in Raleigh.”

He shrugged his shoulders and walked off.

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Ignoring the boys, the two adults stalked along the shore of Shallowbag Bay, eyeing the Elizabeth II as though it were a caged animal about to break loose.

“Wonder what that’s all about?” asked Dennis from his perch in a puddle of sawdust.

“No telling,” said Jeremy. He walked toward the water, one foot in front of the other as if towed by an invisible rope. It was only because he was a collector—stamps, bottles, wood shavings—anything—that he even noticed it. The pale March sun spewing between the rib slats of fence winked against something embedded in the sand. He reached down and, sawdust trickling through his fingers, gingerly retrieved the glistening object—a 1937 Virginia Dare coin.

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